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Featured Articles Los Angeles

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

painting_paint_closeup_277362_m.jpgThe Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) features a little bit of everything in displaying more than 100,000 pieces of art from around the world and across many different disciplines and time periods.

From Africa to Europe to Japan and China and America, the only unrepresented region seems to be Antarctica, which has never had a very prolific output anyway.

The LACMA opened in 1910 as part of the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art. The museum did not have an art collection at the time, nor did it have the ability to acquire one, so artists loaned their work to the museum on a temporary basis so that they could be displayed.

Since then, its mission has evolved to include the display of a wide selection of art from around the world and, more specifically, to display that art and make it interesting and relevant for as wide an audience as possible.

Admission

Visiting the LACMA costs $9 for adults, $5 for students and seniors and children 17 and younger get in free. The museum is also free to visit after 5 p.m. every day until it closes at 8 p.m.

Special exhibitions require tickets for admission that are roughly double the regular ticket prices, but children are still free and ticket prices are reduced on weekdays.

The biggest trick to visiting the LACMA is figuring out parking. There are three paid parking lots around the museum campus charging varying rates from $5 to $8. There is also metered parking on 6th Street, Wilshire Boulevard and adjacent neighboring streets. Parking is limited during certain hours.

Location

The LACMA is located at 5905 Wilshire Blvd, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits. It closes on Wednesdays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, but is otherwise open throughout the year noon to 8 p.m. on weekdays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekends.

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Featured Articles Sweden Things to Do

Top Ten Museums in Stockholm

There are more than 100 museums in Stockholm to choose from, but here is a selection. See websites for admission and opening hours.

1. The Vasa Museum (Djurgården) – The world’s only intact 17th century ship, the Vasa, which sank on her maiden voyage in Stockholm’s habor in 1628.

2. Moderna Museet (Skeppsholmen) – Contemporary art from 1900, and photography from the 1840s. The permanent collection includes works by artists such as Duchamp, Picasso, Dalí and Matisse.

3. The National Museum (Blasieholmshamnen, next to the Grand Hotel) – The national gallery and Sweden’s largest art museum. More than 16,000 paintings and sculptures and an extensive collection of applied art, design and industrial design dating back to the 14th century.

4. The Nordic Heritage Museum – Swedish and Scandinavian cultural history.

5. Stockholm City Museum – History and development of the Swedish capital. Free admission.

6. Skansen (Djurgården) – Open air museum with historical buildings, a zoo and an aquarium. Open year round.

7. Ethnographic Museum (Djurgården). Rotating exhibitions on various world cultures.

8. Junibacken (Djurgården). The kids will love this real-life rendition of Astrid Lindgren’s stories. Meet Pippi Longstocking and the rest of the gang.

9. Nobel Museum (Gamla Stan). Located in the old Stock Exchange building in Stortorget, the big square in the Old Town. Learn all about the great minds who have won the prestigious Nobel Prize awarded in Stockholm every December.

10. Abba Museum. It’s not opening until June 2009, but tickets have already gone on sale to see this tribute to the most famous Swedish pop stars of all time.

Photo by: AbhijeetVardhan

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Articles Los Angeles

Norton Simon Museum

painting_strokes_yellow_277363_m.jpgPasadena’s Norton Simon Museum describes itself as an “adventure in the visual arts.” This may be the case compared to other stodgy museums with comparable collections, but the Norton Simon Museum is probably referencing its place on the forefront of painting collections. The Norton Simon does not have the most extensive or complete collection in the world, the west coast, or even Los Angeles. But the collection is prestigious and focused, full of works you’re not going to see elsewhere.

In addition to the unique paintings the museum displays, the Norton Simon displays some remarkable statues from South Asia, tapestries and a lake built in to the museum garden.

The Norton Simon Museum has gone through several names in its history. The Pasadena Art Institute became the Pasadena Art Museum, which became the Norton Simon Museum. Along with its name the building has evolved over the last few decades. The architect Frank Gehry redesigned the museum so that it had had more display space, an increased capacity for temporary exhibits and a floor solely devoted to Asian art.

Location

The Norton Simon Museum is located at 411 W. Colorado Boulevard, near Old-Town district in Pasadena. The Museum is on the Tournament of Roses Rose Parade route and during television broadcasts of the parade the building’s exterior can be seen.

Admission

Adults are charged $8.00 for admission to the museum and seniors $4.00. Students with ID, museum members and anyone younger than 19 get in free. The Acoustiguide Audio Tour costs $3.00 for use during your tour of the museum.

Hours

The Norton Simon is closed on Tuesdays, but open from noon to 6:00 p.m. the rest of the week. On Fridays the museum stays open until 9:00 p.m. and from 6:00 to 9:00 on the first Friday of every month admission is free.

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Articles Croatia Los Angeles

Southwest Museum

sw-museum.jpgThe Southwest Museum in Los Angeles is home to over a quarter million American Indian artifacts and works of art. It was one of the most impressive collections of Native American pieces assembled in this part of the world and because of limited room, the museum could only display about 5,000 pieces.

This meant that at any given time, about 98% of the museum’s collection was in storage. But no longer. The Southwest Museum is going to be renovated and restored to a level that will give curators much more flexibility and option in their display selection and increase the usable space in the museum significantly.

Unfortunately, this will also force the museum to relocate from its neighborhood location on the top of tight-knit Mt. Washington, to the expanded campus in Griffith Park.

Previous problems with the building itself led to problems with leaking roofs during rain, flooding, electrical problems and an infestation of what the museum’s website calls “vermin.”

The plan is to have the Southwest Museum up and running again by 2009, in a new building with updated seismic technology, display capabilities and technology. Meanwhile, work will continue on the old building, which is scheduled for completion in 2010. The Southwest Museum will then become some other type of cultural building, as was stipulated in the donor’s will. Until then, the Museum store will be open on weekends and events and programs will be open to the public and put on around the year. The Southwest Museum website has information on the restoration, remodel and move to the new location.

Admission

Museum exhibits are now closed to the public until the collection is moved to another location. The Southwest Museum had a deal with a location in Griffith Park called “The Museum of the American West” that allowed for admission to both for $12.00, but that deal has been discontinued since the Southwest Museum closed.

Location

The new location of the Southwest Museum is undecided, although the plan is that it will be part of the expansion in Griffith Park. This is a map to the old location on Mt. Washington, which will become another cultural interpretive center.

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Articles Los Angeles

Highland Park and Eagle Rock

highland-park.jpgHighland Park and Eagle Rock make up the area between Glendale and Pasadena in East Los Angeles. Although they are incorporated within the city of Los Angeles, the two neighborhoods have distinct boundaries and neighborhood identities.

Highland Park

Highland Park is a neighborhood north east of Los Angeles bordered by the 110 freeway, South Pasadena, and Eagle Rock. The neighborhood is relatively small, but within its borders there is a progression from a depressed neighborhood full of people just trying to get by, to an area of interesting architecture, beautiful houses and relative wealth.

Highland Park is one of the oldest settled suburbs of Los Angeles. During the 1960’s the area became predominantly Latino and in the last few decades a significant black and Asian population has moved in to the neighborhood.

Attractions in Highland Park include the Southwest Museum, which has a vast collection of Native American artifacts from surrounding tribes, and various local restaurants and bars.

Eagle Rock

A formerly somewhat depressed area similar to Highland Park, in the last few years Eagle Rock has been revitalized and rebounded from a few decades of decline. Termed “the new Silver Lake” when local residents realized that housing prices were somewhat less in Eagle Rock than surrounding areas, Eagle Rock has seen an influx of urban hipsters and residents with disposable income that has tipped the neighborhood on its head.

Eagle Rock’s small area has the self-contained feel of a college town. The neighborhood is home to Occidental College, a small liberal arts university with 2,000 students and a significant number of those students stay in Eagle Rock after graduation. The local student watering hole “The Chalet” is frequently ranked in the top ten bars in Los Angeles and local restaurants like Casa Bianca and The Bucket draw accolades from food critics across the city.

Restaurants

Casa Bianca and The Bucket are both neighborhood mainstays in Eagle Rock. They are landmarks that have been around forever. Two new restaurants have opened across the street from each other on Colorado Boulevard at the heart of Eagle Rock, Dave’s Chillin’ and Grillin’ and The Oinkster. “Dave’s” is a sandwich shop run by Massachusetts transplant Dave Evans which focuses on the quality of ingredients for the best sandwiches in the city, The Oinkster bills itself as “slow fast food” and has the name of fine dining chef Andre Guerrero to back it. While the Oinkster participates in such foolery as making their own ketchup every day from scratch, the dining experience at Dave’s makes you feel like you’re getting a custom sandwich. Just ask Dave about his ingredients and watch him go.

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Articles Los Angeles

Museum of Television and Radio

interiors_white_front_282431_m.jpgThe Museum of Television and Radio is a befitting tribute for a city whose fortunes and future were constructed by mass media entertainment.

Now named the Paley Center, the location in Beverly Hills is part reference library, part movie theater and part celebration of Television culture. Visitors have the option of looking up old video clips and pulling them up on individual screens or watching them in a “family room” for four people. The Paley Center also screens films and shows daily in their movie theater sized screening room. Visitors might find shorts looking at the work of Jim Henson, Saturday Night Live over the years, or an exploration of another theme having to do with TV.

The Museum of Television and Radio is a tribute to the media’s past, but it also weighs in on contemporary shows and trends in the industry. Every so often the center offers a Media as Lens series, which assembles a room of people in the television industry and has them weigh in on current topics in the entertainment industry and world at large.

The Museum of Television and Radio is one of those free museums with a suggested donation of $10. Although you don’t have to pay it to enter, the museum is run off of donations in addition to the trust of William S. Paley, whom the museum is now named for.

Unlike typical museums, the Paley Center does not collect artifacts and mementos from Television shows. In fact, there is almost nothing tangible in the Paley Center. The museum exists as a way for future generations to see the shows that established television into the media giant that it is today. With over 140,000 shows selected by the museum staff for their influence, innovation, quality, or success, the museum supplies a way for scholars, historians, and the general public to look into what sort of shows were popular throughout the last century and what those shows looked like.

Unfortunately, the public cannot view the museum’s collection before arriving. Visitors can contact a curator with specific questions at 212.621.6600 from 4:00 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. EST.

The radio component of the Museum of Television and Radio operates much the same way that the television part does. Visitors can look through a catalogue of available shows and programs and choose one to listen to. Unfortunately, copies of programs or even clips of shows are not available for the public as part of the donation agreement with the museum.

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